My Life as a Mankiewicz by Tom Mankiewicz Page B

There's so much painful rejection involved with that profession. If you don't really want it, if you're not convinced you can't live without it, stay away.”
    Back to Yale
    Going to Yale had a certain cachet in those days. The “Big Three” were Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. It was hard not to feel a tiny bit of snobbish entitlement as a “Yalie.” In my junior year President John F. Kennedy was the speaker at graduation. After receiving academic honors he rose and said: “It might be said now that I have the best of both worlds: a Harvard education and a Yale degree.” What a charmer. And what a hero to my generation.
    My social life was blossoming. I fell in love often, which led me to commit one of the most ham-handed, pretentious teenage mistakes of my life. I'm still embarrassed by it. I had the hots for a beautiful girl at Bennett Junior College, and the feeling seemed to be reciprocal. I knew Dad was going to be out of town for Saturday night on one particular weekend. I arranged for her to meet me at our house in the city. I had money saved up from my allowance. Where could I take her to dinner? Question: Where did Dad go to dinner? Answer: The 21 Club, one of the most exclusive restaurants for the New York power elite at the time.
    God help me, I called 21: “This is Mr. Mankiewicz. I'd like a table tomorrow night.”
    â€œOur pleasure, Mr. Mankiewicz. What time?”
    The next night, we arrived at 21. It was packed. One booth against the wall was conspicuously empty. I identified myself to the maître d', who looked puzzled, then reluctantly seated us. The dinner was fabulous. I paid cash. We made wonderful love back at the house. Any and all physical love was wonderful then. She left to go back to Bennett early Sunday morning. I stayed behind. Dad walked into the house late that afternoon and headed for his study. I joined him. “Hi, Dad, welcome back.”
    â€œThanks. Oh, by the way, Tom, did you by any chance have dinner at 21 last night?”
    Fuck! How did he know? I turned beet red and became instantly defensive. “It was money I saved from my allowance. Okay, okay, I guess I knew when I said Mr. Mankiewicz they'd think…I mean, I've never even eaten at 21.”
    â€œNineteen years old and you've never eaten at 21? That's amazing. Don't worry, I'm not mad.”
    â€œYou're not?”
    â€œNo, I just have one question because I'm worried about your future.”
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œWhere are you going to eat when you're successful?”
    Cleopatra
    In some ways the most pivotal film Dad ever made—it changed his professional life, and not necessarily for the better. It became a burr under his creative saddle and an unpleasant memory from which he never really recovered.
    First things first: Elizabeth Taylor had received the highest amount of money any actor, male or female, had ever been paid for a film—$1 million. At the time Cleopatra started shooting, Dad was working on an adaptation of Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. He intended to write and direct a single movie using all four books. Cleopatra's original director was Rouben Mamoulian, an older man, competent and respected, but perhaps not the sort to get your creative blood pounding. Peter Finch was playing Julius Caesar. Stephen Boyd (Messala in Ben-Hur) was Mark Antony. Shooting had begun in London with almost immediate critical creative problems. Depending on who you talked to it was either that Mamoulian couldn't handle Elizabeth or a production of that size, or that the script was never really right, take your pick. After approximately twenty minutes of film was already in the can, shooting shut down when Mamoulian quit or was fired, probably a combination of both. What Fox apparently didn't realize at the time was that in addition to her unprecedented salary, Elizabeth had director approval. She approved only two: Dad and George Stevens, who'd directed her in